They would ask me what actors I saw in the roles. I would tell them, and they’d say “Oh that’s interesting.” And that would be the end of it.
--Elmore Leonard, in 2000, on the extent of his input for Hollywood's adaptation of his novels

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Hallie Ephron's "There Was an Old Woman"

Hallie Ephron made a splash writing suspense with Never Tell a Lie published by HarperCollins in 2009. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called it “stunning” and a “deliciously creepy tale of obsession.” USA Today: “You can imagine Hitchcock curling up with this one.” It was nominated for multiple awards, including the Mary Higgins Clark Award, and was adapted for film as And Baby Will Fall for the Lifetime Movie Network.

There Was an Old Woman is about two women. Thirty-something Evie Ferrante who is a hipster New York museum curator, and Evie's mother's 91-year-old neighbor, Mina Yetner, a retired bookkeeper who once worked in the Empire State Building.

Each of their worlds is coming apart. Acerbic, opinionated, resilient Mina is terrified that she's not so slowly losing her mind. Evie has been dragged home to deal with her alcoholic mother who's been hospitalized -- again. But this time, the usually tidy home where Evie grew up has turned into a hoarder's nest, and Evie's mother was never a hoarder.

Mina and Evie form a bond of friendship across a gap two generations wide, and it's that bond that keeps them both sane.

“Compared to a novel, a film is like an economy pizza where there are no olives, no ham, no anchovies, no mushrooms, and all you’ve got is the dough.”
--Louis de Bernières, author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin